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3.4 “And Now His
Watch is Ended”
Written by David
Benioff & D.B. Weiss
Directed by Alex
Graves
Commentary by Diana
Rigg (Olenna Tyrell), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), and Alex Graves
This episode deals a lot with consequences, some of them
bigger than others. Two big revolutions occur, and lots of smaller things
happen in response to storylines that have been building for a while.
The first big revolution is the Night’s Watch rebellion.
This one has been building since last season; earlier, if you consider all the
groundwork laid about how dishonorable and awful the men of the Night’s Watch
tend to be. The events of this season have just given them a reason. Mormont
hauled them all this way north, they probably don’t understand why he did it,
and now a good chunk of them are dead and the rest of them are dying. And
Craster’s sitting here refusing to help and laughing at them for their plight. These
are not the kind of men—like Mormont—who can take this sort of thing lying
down.
Mormont’s problem is that he overestimated the honorability
and obedience of the men under his command. Bringing them all up here was a
mistake anyway; sure, he wanted to try to stop Mance before he ever reached the
Wall, but he knew about the wights and Walkers and knew they were real and a
threat, but brought all this cannon fodder up here regardless. Craster is the
only somewhat-ally they have north of the Wall, and he’s a poor one. They’ve
been sitting at Craster’s Keep for days, if not weeks, and at least one of
their number has died. Everyone’s cold and hungry and angry, and they don’t
feel that Mormont has their best interests at heart. A lot of these are men who
are here because they took what they wanted rather than getting it through
legitimate means—thieves and rapists—and the vows of the Night’s Watch
essentially just put a leash on them. But the leash can only hold so far.
Craster demands respect in his own home, but hasn’t in any
way earned it, so Karl (we knew Burn Gorman was going to step up at some point)
calls him a “daughter-fucking wildling bastard,” daring him to actually make
good on all the threats he’s been making. And when Craster tries—lunging at him
with his axe—Karl puts his dagger through Craster’s throat. This kicks off a
riot, essentially, and when Mormont tries to pull everything back under
control, reminding them that there are laws and customs about being guests in
other people’s homes, Rast stabs him in the back. Despite his injury, Mormont
nearly manages to strangle Rast to death before the wound gets the better of
him and he collapses.
Not only does this create a massive rift in the Night’s
Watch and lose them yet more men, it foreshadows what Jon will have ahead of
him when he becomes Lord Commander. These are not disciplined, trained men who
will follow the orders of their commander no matter what; these are loose
cannons who have to be bullied and manipulated into doing even things that are
in their own best interest. Though it’s on a small and petty scale, they’re
playing their own game of thrones at the Wall, and you win or you die.
Mormont fought valiantly. Mormont fought nobly. Mormont
fought honorably. And Mormont died.
Sam, Gilly, and the unnamed baby escape the carnage and head
south toward the Wall. I don’t quite understand why they chose to have Gilly go
ahead and have her baby; maybe they thought knowing
it was a boy would give Sam and Gilly more impetus to leave? Or explain why
they get attacked by a Walker later? Or it would be easier on the actress to
carry a doll than wear a pregnant belly while doing all the walking they have
to do? Either way, this completely ruins the baby-swap plot point that would
have been coming later.
The other major revolution is Dany’s rise to becoming an
actual power rather than a “beggar queen.” She pretends to make the deal with
the Astapor slave masters, handing Drogon over to them on a leash, then, once
the deal is done, turns the Unsullied on the masters and gives Drogon the order
to start burning everything. She offers the Unsullied their freedom, but none
of them take her up on it, instead pounding their spears on the ground to show
that they’re loyal to her now. Dany leads the remains of the khalasar and her new army out of Astapor
and symbolically throws the whip on the ground.
The issues with Dany and slavery are very subtle in the
books and I’m not sure how much of it actually comes through in the show (I’m
guessing not a lot, since subtlety isn’t exactly this show’s strong suit). Dany
believes she’s doing her due diligence by offering the Unsullied their freedom
just as she did the slaves taken by the khalasar
at the end of season one. What she fails to understand is that the
Unsullied weren’t just yanked out of their villages yesterday. They’ve been
brainwashed, conditioned to serve, and probably can’t even conceive of the idea
of freedom. Their choice to stay in her service is less of a victory than it
appears, because it’s less of a choice. Dany is going to continue to use the
Unsullied the way they were created to be used, although she will give them a
voice on her council. Similarly, Missandei was given to her as a slave, and
though she ostensibly frees her, Missandei stays with her and continues to act
as her interpreter and scribe. In the books, there’s never any mention of
payment or anything beyond care, feeding, and protection—which is not much
different than how a really nice master would treat his/her slaves. It seems
pretty clear that Martin was making a point about the “white savior” trope and
how Dany’s “help” is pretty self-centered, but I’m not sure the showrunners
picked up on it.
A similar revenge motif is evident in Varys and Tyrion’s
conversation back in the Red Keep. Tyrion wants to know how Varys can be sure
that it was Cersei who ordered the hit on him during the battle; Varys says he
doesn’t have hard proof. He understands Tyrion’s need for revenge, but advises
taking it slowly and carefully. He uses his own life as an example—he was a boy
actor, sold to a sorcerer who used his man-bits as fuel for a conjuring spell
of some kind, then worked his way up from the gutter to the spymaster of
Westeros. The whole time, he’s slowly prying the lid off of a crate, and when
it finally comes off, it turns out the sorcerer himself is in that crate. Dun dun duuuuuuuuun.
Something about this scene bothers me, and I can’t quite put
a finger on why. It feels out of place and odd. Sure, it gives us some
background about Varys and how hard he’s worked to get here. It allows him to
show Tyrion what he means about waiting and consolidating your power so you can
get revenge. It gives Varys a bit more motivation for backing the Lannisters
against Stannis—he distrusts magic and can’t support Stannis when he’s
supported by Melisandre. And yet the whole thing with the sorcerer in the crate
feels a bit extraneous and over the top. Maybe it’s because Varys so rarely
takes a hands-on approach to anything; he’s more likely (in my mind) to have
caused the sorcerer to be ruined or ruin himself rather than have him crated up
and shipped to Westeros so he can—what, torture him? I don’t remember if we see
what Varys does with the sorcerer after this.
Brienne also tells Jaime revenge is important. He’s miserable,
sick, probably dying, and letting himself go. She calls him names to try to get
him angry enough to want to live and tells him he has to survive if he wants to
take revenge. She also asks why he made up the story about sapphires just to
save her from rape, and he doesn’t have an answer for her. He might not have an
answer for himself.
Theon, on the other hand, is tired of revenge, especially
since he realizes he was taking revenge for nothing. He and Ramsay make their
way (ostensibly) to Deepwood Motte, where Ramsay has promised Yara is waiting
for him. On the way, Theon tells Ramsay all about all the stuff he’s pent up
over the last couple of seasons, admitting that he didn’t kill Bran and Rickon,
admitting that he always wanted to be a Stark, admitting that this whole thing
was because he was told he couldn’t
be a Stark, but he knew he was a bad Greyjoy. Only the bit at the end about Ned
being his real father doesn’t quite ring true, probably because we hardly ever
see Theon and Ned together. Comments about Robb being his brother make sense;
without more evidence of Theon and Ned’s relationship, that claim just doesn’t
quite float for me. Alfie Allen, of course, kills the whole scene again because
he’s amazing as Theon; the not-quite-buying-it isn’t his fault at all.
And then he finds out that all of this has been for nothing,
as Ramsay has led him right back into the dungeons of the Dreadfort and he’s
tied back up on the cross.
Other scenes are set-up for later consequences. Varys meets
with Ros and learns that Petyr plans to sneak Sansa out of King’s Landing. They
also have a much-too-long conversation about Pod’s presumed sexual prowess
(ugh) and completely harpoon my fanwank from last week about Petyr paying back
his debt this way—apparently he
didn’t notice the loss of money. Petyr. Master of Coin. Clawed his way up from
barely nobility to one of the most powerful men in the realm by working with
money. Didn’t notice. That three of
his prostitutes are short on their pay.
Right. Sure. Okay.
That whole scene was one thing when they did it in the last
episode. Comic relief, fine, whatever. Bringing it back up in this episode is just . . . excessive.
But the scene as a whole establishes that Ros is working for
Varys, that she’s smart, that she can read, and that she’s oddly protective of
Sansa. This will have horrendous consequences later.
Meanwhile, Joffrey’s showing Margaery all the graves in the
Great Sept of Baelor, and he’s really excited about it. Cersei and Olenna are
there, too, discussing the seating capacity of the Sept for the wedding. Cersei
gets a firsthand look at Margaery’s ability to manipulate Joffrey and how she’s
establishing herself as his equal and helper, and she hates every single second
of it. She also gets to show a bit of her own political savvy by being extra
pious when Olenna questions why men get to run everything. Too bad that
political savvy doesn’t continue. We also get a (kind of) subtle bit of
foreshadowing from Olenna about Joffrey’s death, which she, of course, is
planning right now.
Later Olenna meets with Varys to discuss the possibility of
“rescuing” Sansa by marrying her off to Loras before Petyr can abscond with
her. Margaery gets to pitch that idea to Sansa, who is clearly delighted. This
is another shift from the books, evidence of them condensing the plot and
characters a bit; instead of betrothing Sansa to Wyllas, who I think maybe
shows up in the books once (if that), they don’t add Loras to the Kingsguard
and promise Sansa to him instead. Adding Loras to the Kingsguard added to
Cersei’s internal evidence that the Tyrells were taking too much power, but
it’s not entirely necessary to make
the overall plot work. Unfortunately, it also gives the writers nothing to do
with Loras, which comes back to bite them later.
Finally, Sandor is facing the consequences not only for his
actions, but his brother’s and all the rest of the Lannisters’ at the hands of
the Brotherhood without Banners. All of them are angry, and all of them want
revenge for their dead. As is typical for Sandor, he admits to being a killer
but refuses to take responsibility for lives he didn’t take with his own hands.
Unfortunately for him, Arya is there to lay one he did take with his own hands at his feet—Mycah, the butcher’s boy.
Beric Dondarrion (who looks a lot worse than the last time we saw him)
sentences him to trial by combat, fighting Beric himself.
RIP: Bannen
Lord Jeor Mormont, Commander of the Night’s Watch
Craster
Kraznys mo Nakoloz
Greizhen mo Ullhor
Various other slavers
Next Week: Jon and Ygritte finally seal the deal. Dany heads to Yunkai. Robb screws up again. Jaime takes a bath.
All images from screencapped.net.
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